Gendered empire

What do we see when we look at our collective Dutch colonial legacies from a gender perspective? How are these colonial legacies reflected in our museum collections and archives? Do herstories remain hidden and are there unknown biographies to unravel? Or do we reinterpret existing master narratives? Using an intersectional perspective, the volume A gendered empire looks at the current growing Dutch interest in its own colonial legacy from a more critical and self-reflexive stance. The authors bring historical and current examples in the Dutch metropole and colonies together. Collectively they share archival silences, biographical counternarratives and a museum world grappling with its own colonial legacy, all the while wondering: what has gender got to do with it.

Contents: EDITORIAL BOARD, Foreword   NANCY JOUWE, Introduction   The silent archive: SUZE ZIJLSTRA, Free and enslaved Asian women in European and Eurasian households in 18th-century Makassar   MERVE TOSUN, Women at home and men outdoors? Locating enslaved persons in 17th- and 18th-century Batavia   NANCY JOUWE, Beyond the dapur. Listening to Papuan Women   STEPHANIE WELVAART, Cultural violence in the archives. Representation of women in Dutch testimonies on the Indonesian war of independence   Biographies of ‘the other’: EMMA VAN MEIJEREN, Whiskey in a crate: an interview with Glenda Martinus and her son Quinsy Gario about the 30 May 1969 uprising on Curaçao   SIDRA SHAHID, Dutch impartiality and the burqa ban   STEPHANIE WELVAART, A tribute to Ciska Pattipilohy   CARLA TJON, In van God verlaten oorden   LARA NUBERG, ‘So do you also love cooking?’ (translated by Jane Hedley-Prole)   The hidden museum: CAROLINE DRIEËNHUIZEN, From beauties to brides: gender, race and agency in a Dutch colonial museum collection   JACQUES DANE/EVELIEN WALHOUT, Picturing the East. A visual analysis of Dutch late 19th- and early 20th-century educational tools from the collection of the Dutch National Museum of Education   EVELINE BUCHHEIM/MARLEEN REICHGELT, Reflections on Een verborgen geschiedenis: anders kijken naar Nederlands-Indië by Thom Hoffman   MARLEEN REICHGELT/LARISSA SCHULTE NORDHOLT, Colonial Heritage and Restitution: a round-table conversation about the restitution of colonial heritage, with Wim Manuhutu, Henrietta Lidchi & Jos van Beurden   Author biographies   Summaries